


A Portrait of the Last Dragonborn as a Young Woman

by ktyxdovahkiin



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls Online, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: 36 Lessons of Vivec, Alternate Canon, Dovahzul (Elder Scrolls), Fantasy, Friendship, Love, Magic Realism, Moral Lessons, Philosophy, Supernatural Elements, Women Being Awesome, Women In Power, bildungsroman, muscular women, not quite Modernism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25895419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktyxdovahkiin/pseuds/ktyxdovahkiin
Summary: I was going for a Gaimanesque flavor with this new project, or tonally similar to T.H. White's "The Once and Future King", but I've been told that it reads very much like Tolkien in some places -- I assume "The Hobbit" or the bits featuring characters from the Shire, and not, say, "Silmarillion".I would like to roughly sketch out what I'm going for here. There is a City, in a Bay. Near this City, up in the Mountains, there is a Village. In this Village, there is a blacksmith. They call her the All-Maker, out of respect, because she makes all things. She has a daughter. This girl will become the LDB when she is born into the world, but it is not yet that time. She is not yet in a place that has Time. She has many lessons to learn first, many experiences to have, many people to meet. Her journey of bildung -- of growth and learning -- will transcend time and space. And her guides on this journey will be those constant, illuminating presences in everyone's lives...Love is the secret. Love is how we save this world, and all worlds.Love is first. Never abandon. Never abandon.
Kudos: 6





	1. The Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some parts of this chapter reference portions of Miyamoto Musashi's "The Book of Five Rings".

The girl loved to help her mother at the forge. She couldn’t yet stand at the anvil and swing the hammer, and she was still too clumsy with the tongs, but she could pump the bellows, which she always did with a good deal of vigor. For as long as she could remember, her strong and skillful mother had made things in her forge for the entire Village. She could make all things, it seemed to the girl; no matter who came by with some request or another, her mother could make whatever was desired.

And the girl loved learning as much as she could, even if she couldn’t understand all the things that went on before her eyes. She tried to reach out and pluck the starlight from the night sky, as her mother did, but her fingers closed on emptiness and the light remained obstinately out of reach. 

“Pump now, girl,” her mother said, motioning to the bellows, and the girl fell to with a good will, letting the sweat bead her bare skin, loving the soreness in her shoulders and arms, and loving also the flare of the fire in the forge-hearth as the breath of the bellows fed it life.

The visitors came by from time to time, always in the same order throughout the year, and so the girl learned to mark Time by their coming. She liked them all — except the one who never came to ask her mother for anything but rather stayed in the grasses beside the road and silently watched everyone else. She didn’t like that one. It was suspicious and rude of the Serpent, she thought, and one shouldn’t carry on that way. In any case, the girl did have favorites, and she always looked forward to the Warrior coming by.

So when the dark-skinned woman in dark leathers came striding up the path, her twin falchions strapped to her back and her foe-hammer swinging at her hip, the girl jumped off the stack of stone ingots — her mother was making cliffs this week — and ran to meet her favorite visitor.

“Will you teach me to fight today?” she cried. “I can be an Ansei. I want to follow Shehai. Teach me the Way of the Sword, and I will do you proud, I will.”

“Your affinity is with ice, my dear, not the desert.”

“Well, who is to say? I am sure I will not mind the sand and hot weather,” the girl said stoutly. “I do want to learn to be a warrior like you. I think I was born to fight, sometimes.” And well she might think so, for though not yet of ten winters the girl’s shoulders were broad, and her legs were thick, and her thews had the strength of perhaps two or three grown men.

But the Warrior just laughed and shook her head with its curled ringlets of hair. “Not yet, not yet. The ballad of ice and snow must first be sung. Then it will be time for the songs of the desert. The Kelle have said so.”

“I do not give a fig about the Kelle.”

“Well, they don’t need you to. In any case, I will have to ask your mother if I want to teach you the Way.”

“But you do want to teach me it!”

“Well,” and the Warrior grinned, “everyone should know the Way, if you ask me. And nobody’s too young, either; I would have everyone know and follow the Way if they could.”

The girl followed behind the Warrior, pretending to hold a greatsword in her hands and making big sweeping motions in the air, accompanied by swishing sounds with her mouth.

“Careful there. The edge of your mind is blunt. Sharpen it first,” the Warrior said over her shoulder. The girl stopped, puzzled and a little hurt.

“And what do you want today, Warrior?” the girl’s mother asked, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. “Armguards? Greaves? A helmet?”

“Your daughter wants to learn the Way.”

“So she does,” the blacksmith sighed. “I suppose she can play today if she wants. She’s been a good girl. But will she mind you, you think?”

“I’m sure she will. I’ve had far worse students, I daresay. Do I have your permission then, All-Maker?”

“Yes. Teach her well. Teach her all you can today.”

“I will.”

The girl was excited. She thanked her mother, and skipped along beside the Warrior as they walked together down the road, towards the City by the bay. “I shall be a mighty warrior,” she said. “I shall learn so much from you. The 38 grips,” she began reciting, “the 750 offensive stances, the 1,800 defensive ones, the 9,000 strikes! My foes will fall before me like wheat before a scythe!” Her face was flushed with battle-fever.

“And is swordplay all you want to learn, girl?”

“Well… it’ll be useful, too, to learn the axe and hammer and spear and bow, I expect. But you know all of that, of course. I shall take instruction from you,” the girl said respectfully.

“Oh, you will, will you? And is that really all you want to learn? Very well, we shall see. Come with me, here. Just here. No, step like this. See? No, again, watch. Ah yes, you have it.”

“Where are we?”

All around there was the smell of sweat and a low rumbling of people speaking. A great crowd had gathered in front of a longhouse — they were among the Orsimer, and this was a stronghold in the mountains, the girl realized. The Orcs were all standing around in a big circle, in the middle of which were two masses of rippling muscle so entwined together that it took some moments before the girl realized what everyone was watching: two women, one Orcish, the other seemingly Nord; both unclothed, and locked in a furious wrestling match.

“No swords anywhere, see? Yet these are warriors, right enough.”

“Oh, lovely! How gallant of them!”

Her blood thrilled in her as she watched the grappling contest. First one woman was ascendant, then the other, but finally it was the Orcish woman who had a firm hold of her Nord opponent’s wrists and pinned them firmly to the earth. Again and again the Nord woman below her thrashed and writhed, attempting to push up with one arm or the other, but the Orc turned back all these attempts and pushed her arms back down. At last, as all four arms trembled with exhaustion, the Nord woman looked up into her vanquisher’s eyes and spoke her submission.

The winner stood up, breathing heavily, and offered a hand to the Nord, who took it and pulled herself to her feet. All around them was clapping and cheering. The Orcish victor grabbed the fresh-faced Nord woman’s arm and raised it up high in the air, acknowledging the strength of her defeated opponent whose head was now bowed in resigned acceptance of her loss.

“Oh, brave!” the girl sighed. Something stirred very deeply within her at the sight of those women and their comportment.

“A gracious victor, and a dignified loser. Would you like to speak with either of them?”

“Oh, yes please. Can I not speak to both?”

“Choose one.”

The girl considered this. “Is this a puzzle?” she said slowly. “I do not see why I cannot speak to both of them, perhaps one at a time.”

“You speak rightly; I am setting you a puzzle. Choose only one of these to speak with.

“Oh, very well, if you say so, Warrior. I choose…” The girl bit her lip, looking from one magnificent woman to the other. At last she pointed.

“I would like to speak with the loser, the Nord woman.”

“Very well. Come on, then.”

They stood in front of the Nord warrior, who was sitting on a chair and taking big gulps from a waterskin. She was still breathing hard, and the sweat still gleamed on her bare body. “Hello,” the girl said respectfully.

The Nord woman gave a start, and her eyes focused on them. “Hail.”

“I saw your match, or the last part of it. You were very good,” the girl offered.

“Thank you. Are you…” The woman blinked quizzically. “Do you live here in this stronghold?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t. I’m a visitor, like you. What is your name, please?”

“I’m Mjoll, called by some the Lioness,” the woman said, straightening up proudly. “I’m travelling across Tamriel, because adventure is in my blood. I’m proud to call the Orcs of this stronghold my friends. They accept me, because I did a few things for them in the past. I come here sometimes to train myself against them, and strengthen both my body and spirit.”

“Is this the first time you’ve wrestled with that Orc woman?”

“Hardly! She is my dear friend, the forge-wife of this stronghold. We must have had dozens of bouts by now. Sometimes we brawl bare-knuckle, like I do in taverns. Sometimes we spar with weapons. And sometimes we simply sit down at a table and have a contest with our arms. It’s not only her — I match myself against quite a few of the others here as well.”

“Do you win or lose most of these bouts? Against her?”

“Ah. I almost always lose. She is among the strongest here. Few can withstand the strength of her arms. When I do win, it is by some form of guile, I’m afraid.”

“But when you lose, you will have to stand there in your defeat.”

“Aye. That’s how it’s done. Glory for the victors, and to the defeated — shame. That is how it should be.”

“They seem to respect you though.”

“That they do. But it is to her that the glory rightfully goes, as it should. And of course, later she may take her rightful spoils of me…”

The Warrior interrupted. “She’s, uh, too young to hear of these things, for now. Some other time, Mjoll.”

“Aye.” Mjoll’s brow crinkled momentarily, and her eyes looked in the direction of the Warrior, but not at her, as if she were looking at something behind the Warrior. But before long she shook her head a little, and looked at the girl again.

“The important thing, girl, is to never give up,” she said fiercely. “Never, though all around you are jeering, though even your friends doubt you, though the enemy seems impossibly strong — never, never give up. If any seek to crush and oppress you, if any try to destroy you, stand up and fight. And if you are beaten down, rise and rise again, until lambs become lions, and the evil is no more.”

The girl stood open-mouthed, gazing at the fierce-eyed young warrior whose passion set her eyes aflame, until the vision before her dissolved into a thick mist.

“Well? What have you learned from that?”

“That our bodies are our true weapons,” the girl said, slapping her own somewhat brawny arms confidently, “and never to give up, ever. So we can defeat evil, and have victory!”

“Victory? Is that what Mjoll said?”

“Why, yes. Um… yes? She said, that last bit…”

“Did she say victory was always certain in the end, as long as one never gave up?”

“Well, no…”

“Do you think she will be victorious over her friend?”

“Sometimes, like she said, she is.”

“But can she win a final victory over that friend?”

“I… don’t suppose so? There’s always the next contest… no, there’s no such thing as a final victory, like that. Perhaps they should simply sum these things up.”

“And if they do, suppose we tote up their score and Mjoll is found to have lost.”

“Well… that seems likely.”

“So where’s this victory?”

The girl frowned. “Well, she’s bound to win sometimes, and it’ll feel good each time,” she said stubbornly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“So is that why you want to learn to fight? To feel good when you win?”

“... it does feel good to win.”

“So you fight for victory?”

“What else is one after, when one fights? Of course one seeks victory!”

“And what is victory?”

“What is — oh, bother it all,” the girl cried. “You’re muddling me. What do warriors fight to achieve, if not victory? Surely they don’t go in meaning to lose.”

“Perhaps they go into battle knowing they will lose.”

“Then what’s the point of fighting, then?” the girl cried, stamping her foot.

The Warrior said nothing for a time, and the girl trod along behind her as they walked through the mist, muttering sulky things under her breath. Then the Warrior said, musingly, as though speaking to no one at all:

“From the beginning my heart has been inclined towards the Way of the Warrior. When I was a little girl, I took the Serpent in my hand and crushed it. When I was on the cusp of adulthood, I struck down my first opponent in a duel. When I was a young woman I wandered the Aurbis, meeting all manner of fighters, never failing to win a battle. But in the fullness of my years, I looked back, and I saw that my previous victories were not due to any sort of mastery I had. Perhaps my opponents were flawed or weak, or perhaps Sai the God of Luck was on my side. So I studied the ways of the heavens, the earth, the stars, the waters, the Aurbis and the _atomos_ _,_ the realms of being, the realms of not-being. So I tell you now: I have understood and followed the Way, which is living according to no particular Way.”

The girl blinked. “What?”

“Strategy is the craft of the Warrior, yet there is no warrior who understands the way of Strategy. This thing cannot now be explained in detail. For now, just understand this, girl: from one thing, know ten thousand things. Perceive things which cannot be seen. Pay attention even to trifles. Do nothing which is of no use. You must study hard.”

“I will do that. But…”

“Come with me now. We will speak to Mjoll again, at the end of her life.”

“The end?” the girl gasped, but she followed the Warrior and stepped out into a flurry of snow. Snow pelted her, and she had to shield her eyes. The world around her was an endless wall of white.

But the Warrior walked ahead, and beckoned. They were at the entrance to a cave, and gratefully the girl stumbled into it, sweeping the snow off her bare arms and shoulders. “You might have told me to bring warm furs,” she said with a small note of resentment in her voice.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that at the very back of the cavern, there was a figure sitting cross-legged, in an attitude of quiet repose. The girl recognized Mjoll — but now the Lioness’s face was lined with age, and her hair was more grey than gold. She was clad in well-worn armor, and across her lap there was a great sword of green glass that seemed to emit a faint blue light.

Mjoll’s eyes opened. “Who’s there?” she said. Then her eyes opened wider. “You… I know you. I’ve seen you…”

“A long time ago, in your life.”

Mjoll began to chuckle. “For me, it was not so long as that! I’ve seen you, with your dragons, your companions, your armies…” Her eyes glazed over a little. “So it was you, then, all those years ago. When I was but a fresh-faced young adventurer, wandering all over the face of Tamriel, from High Rock to Hammerfell…”

The girl stepped forward and respectfully sank to her knees. “I’ve come to learn some lessons from you,” she said humbly. “My teacher brought me here.”

“To think,” Mjoll whispered. “That here and now, I speak to you as you are, in this form before me… and to teach you lessons? I can’t say I understand this. I’m about to die, you know. I am content,” she said, and the girl knew it was true. “I am not afraid. For though I do not die in battle, Sovngarde awaits me. I can hear the music from the horns of the heroes already!”

“Please, won’t you teach me what you know before you go? Tell me what you’ve come to understand,” the girl said, grasping for meaning. She looked to the side, but the Warrior remained unhelpfully silent.

“Why does a warrior fight?” she asked finally.

Mjoll smiled. “Look. Do you see the word on the wall, behind me?” she said. “You Shouted this word into the stone before I came here, because you knew I would choose to end my days in this place. You — ah, but you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. No matter. Do you see this word?”

“I see it, carved into the rock. This is a word?”

“It is in the language of the Dragons. It is _zahkrii,_ which means ‘sword’. I was told it is actually two words but used as one: ‘zah’, meaning ‘finite, limited’, and ‘krii’, which is to kill. But it is one word, all the same. And you gifted me with the understanding of it, some time ago.” Mjoll chuckled a little. “Now it seems I must gift it back to you!”

The girl looked up at the word on the wall, frowning.

Mjoll looked down at the glowing sword in her lap, which was the only source of illumination in the cave.

“This is my sword, Grimsever. It has been the sword I wielded the most. It has been lost, and found again. It has seen me through good times and bad, through dangers great and small. With it I have won victory, and with it I have suffered defeat.

“In Black Marsh, I was there when a full Thalmor brigade attacked an Argonian village, full of younglings and others who did not fight. We, the defenders, were few. I stood alongside some of the Reel-Ka — the warriors of the Saxhleel, which is what Argonians call themselves — and we were led by a great Kaal, a battle commander. She was old but fierce and strong, and stood proudly with her spear at the ready. The other Reel-Ka with us were in fact the mothers of the village — their male warriors had gone far away on campaign, and these particular Thalmor had been given the task of spreading terror by committing atrocities on civilians.

“We fought with every bit of defiance we could muster. The Thalmor jeered at us, and condescended to us with terms of surrender that meant abject humiliation, not to mention captivity and torture. ‘Lay down your arms!’ they demanded. And the old Argonian matriarch banged her spear against her shield. ‘Come and take them!’ she replied.

“Some of the villagers survived and escaped, but everything was burnt to the ground. I was left for dead somewhere in the marsh, to be found later by Argonian partisans.”

“So much death,” the girl wept.

“Aye, true enough. But we could have done nothing less. We stood and fought, a wall against the aggressor, a sword raised high against the enemy. And so, as a final gift to me, you Shouted this word into this wall here, so that it will be my gravestone. And a very fine one it will be, for which I thank you.”

Mjoll closed her eyes, and her breathing slowed. “To a student of the Way of the Warrior,” she said, her voice soft but steady, “the size or shape or material of the weapon is unimportant. The success or failure of a venture is unimportant. Victory and defeat are unimportant. What is important is the spirit. Wood will rot, metal will rust, magic will fade away, but the spirit cannot die. I go now to the Hall of Shor, where in the company of my mighty sisters and brothers I will not be ashamed.”

And she said nothing more.

The girl remained kneeling there for a long time, as the wind howled outside the cave mouth behind her. She stared at the word behind Mjoll, visible only by Grimsever’s gleaming.

Suddenly she jumped to her feet, her eyes alight.

“I understand!” she cried. And the Warrior stirred, and looked hard at the girl.

“This word for ‘sword’ — it’s not about swords at all!”

The Warrior stood very still. A strange look was in her starlight eyes… a look of expectation.

The girl spoke quickly, as if the words were tumbling out of her. “Sword — finite, kill. The sword is a finite means of killing. To a dragon, a sword is nothing — it cannot bring the dragon the final death — killing is finite. Time is infinite. The spirit cannot die. But the blow is still struck — the hand strikes the blow! For a true master of the blade, the hand and the sword are one, so they tell us — and yet this is still finite, for both sword and hand will perish.

“What is the True Thing that is infinite then? The spirit. The spirit resides in the heart of the person, as the Heart of the World resides in the world — the true sword is in the heart!

“Yet, where is the sword, when we look in the Heart? _It is not there!_ The sword is an illusion — it is the killing-that-is-finite — the sword can die, but _the spirit cannot die!_ There _is_ no sword!”

The Warrior’s mouth opened, and closed, and she seemed on the verge of saying something, but she held herself back with great restraint.

The girl said, “This is why warriors fight. We wield the swords in our hands, using the swords in our hearts… so that finally there will be no sword remaining in hand or heart. The final victory is won when there is no more need for victory. Killing is finite. The spirit is forever. And in the Heart of the World is all virtue and no evil. To say _zahkrii,_ ‘sword’… is really to _mean_ ‘no-sword’. And that’s what victory is. That is what we fight for.”

The girl’s voice trailed away as the Warrior put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled down at the girl proudly.

“Best we be heading on home now. Your mother is waiting, belike.”

The girl made one last bow to the seated body of Mjoll the Lioness. Then together, the girl and the Warrior turned and left the cave.


	2. The Thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains material inspired by the picaresque novel "Lazarillo de Tormes".

The girl was feeling sulky and peevish again.

Her mother was making a huge batch of tonal architecture, and the ringing always gave the girl a headache. She was being allowed to work at the forge now, and she was quite proud of the improvement in her horseshoes, but tonal architecture was very confusing and annoying to work with. And on top of that, the headaches…!

She grumpily stalked past the inventory in the storeroom — large jars of olive oil, sand for polishing, chests of ineluctable vicissitudes and ugly necessities, moral dilemmas stacked high almost to the ceiling, leather gambesons, stacks of spare rings for chainmail, smooth stones destined for riverbeds, and boxes of plain nails (duplex head, 16d — these were nails from the future time). Finally she came to her favorite corner where she could sit on the discarded pile of pointless social niceties and obsolete cultural mores. She angrily propped her chin up on her palms and contemplated the unfairness of life.

That was the attitude in which the Thief found her when she came skulking by. 

“Hallo,” she said. “This one is hearing from your mother that you are in a temper this evening.” She, being of the Evening Star, had not been around in the morning or afternoon to console the girl.

“I hate being confused,” the girl muttered. “The universe seems so large. I hate not knowing where it ends or begins. And I feel so small in it. I hate the sound tonal architecture makes when Mother is banging away on it. It makes me want to reach heaven by violence.” And she thumped her fist on her thigh.

“That is certainly one way to do it, but this one prefers other ways of acquiring understanding. In any case, your mother does not want violence from you yet. She wants you to go back and continue helping. For your education, you well know.” 

“But I don’t want to. At least, not right now.”

The Thief wrinkled her nose. “Steal away with this one, then.”

“Mother will be cross with me.”

“She does not have to know. If you are with this one, assuredly she will not.”

“Oh, but…” The girl paused and frowned. “That wouldn’t be honest.”

“Ah. So a girl is concerned with matters of policy.”

“I mean it would not be nice.”

“A girl is concerned with niceties, while sitting on a pile of discarded ones.”

The girl wriggled in her seat. “They’re soft and comfortable.” But they were otherwise, of course, quite useless.

“In any case,” she continued, “I would like to go away with you for a while, but I should ask permission. I do not like to be a sneak.”

The Thief sniffed. “Well. If you are to be offensive on purpose…”

“Oh, I didn’t mean — well, I’m sure you sneak for good reasons.”

“Good reasons?” The Thief’s whiskers quivered. “What do you think this one goes about doing?” she exclaimed agitatedly.

“Why…” The girl paused again. “I… I don’t rightly know. Stealing things? Sneaking about, with catlike tread in silence dread, and all of that? Picking locks and pockets, making away with the possessions of others by means of deception, duplicity and dishonest representation…?”

“A girl disapproves.”

“Not necessarily! But, well… I’m sure you do more than that,” she said magnanimously. “Higher purposes, I don’t doubt. Say, steal from the rich to give to the poor, or suchlike. Or, steal only from those who can afford to lose whatever you take. Or, steal only if the result of the stealing would be better than if you hadn’t done the stealing.” She beamed, proud with herself for having delineated things so clearly and thoroughly.

The Thief paced back and forth in front of the girl, not bothering to skulk anymore. “Interesting. Very interesting. You would yoke this one to purposes. You would circumscribe this one with rules. You would perform the hedonic calculus. Ah, would you?” she said grimly.

“I’m sorry! Don’t be angry with me. I’m afraid I don’t understand, then,” the girl said, distraught. “Just another thing I don’t understand! Oh, I hate this.”

“Well, you are to be forgiven,” the Thief said generously, and stopped her pacing. “This one forgets, you are still a kitten. But come along now. This one will make matters up to your mother later. She will understand if it is for your edification.”

The girl stood up and followed the Thief out of the storeroom, and they went around the corner.

“Follow this one. This way — yes, good, like that. A little further. Not far now. And now, watch this one’s feet carefully, if you please: step _this_ way… and _this …_ Good. Here we are.”

“But this is the City,” the girl said, turning in circles and looking around — but no, this was not the City by the bay after all. This was another city entirely; a very important city, to be sure. They were in a broad curving street, and the buildings were all of white stone. There was a very tall tower the girl could see, made of the same white stone, but gilded here and there. Or perhaps it was simply the light of the setting sun that gave the tower a sort of golden nimbus.

“This way,” the Thief said, and the girl followed her along the main thoroughfare, wending their way through the crowd. She glanced up, and to her delight she noticed that they were in fact walking around a wheel,for the spokes she could see were familiar to her. She had helped with those spokes, she recalled, eight of them in all, while her mother had toiled away with the other parts of the wheel.

“I shall be a maker yet,” she said to herself.

They came to a row of shops and offices set into the outer wall, and the girl looked up at the signs: Black Horse Courier… Three Brothers Trade Goods…. Jensine’s “Good as New” Merchandise…

It was at Jensine’s that the Thief stopped and motioned for the girl to follow her in. This she did. There was a great hubbub within, for there was much custom and Jensine was a happily busy woman at the moment. The girl and the Thief passed unnoticed as they walked about in the shop.

“Are we stealing something here?” the girl asked diffidently.

“No. Wait and watch.”

The girl did so dutifully, but presently she grew bored. “Very interesting,” she said (to be polite), “but what am I watching for?”

“Times of weal and times of woe.”

The coins clinked into Jensine’s safe box, and the goods changed hands briskly. Her face was ruddy with the pleasure of each successful haggle, and presently she began to hum a tune to herself. 

“I had thought you were the Thief, not the Merchant. Perhaps they are one and the same,” the girl remarked by way of a jape.

“You are an annoying student.”

Then the door opened, and a man walked in — a rotund, balding man in a silvered suit of plate armor (the girl’s critical eye told her: 3rd Era, Imperial City). A solidly-built man, it might have been said, paunchy and round as a nut, which one could tell even under the armor. 

“Captain Avidius,” Jensine said, and went very pale, even for a Nord.

The shop quickly emptied, so that only the man and Jensine remained. He strutted up to the shop counter with a vaguely proprietary air.

“My dear Jensine.”

“You came already last week. It’s not the next month yet.”

“Ah, is this how you show hospitality to an honorable Captain of the Watch? You disappoint me greatly, Jensine.” He shook his head regretfully. “You know well how much I dislike being disappointed. It makes me feel… terribly dissatisfied.”

The proud Nord woman had wilted. The girl was quietly horrified to see the life go out of her this way. It was like seeing a tree suddenly wither and go dead in a matter of moments, as it were — something quite contrary to nature.

“Please, let me make it up to you.”

“A gift? A gift for me? Oh, how kind.” He reached out and took hold of Jensine’s chin, stroking her firm jawline with his gauntleted fingers. “You are a woman as kind as you are fetching,” he murmured. “I am glad to continue giving you my protection and patronage.”

Mutely, she scooped a large handful of coins from her safe box into a leather pouch, drew the string, and placed it on the counter. But the man Avidius did not immediately take it. His greedy eyes were devouring Jensine’s face.

“Maybe I should make an honest woman of you. I keep saying I will, don’t I? Yet I never get around to it,” he said, licking his lips. “Is today the day?”

Jensine said nothing.

“I suppose not,” he said finally, and let go of her chin, sweeping up the bag of coins in the same movement. “Perhaps one of these cold nights I’ll pay you a friendly visit, hm? And we can warm each other up. For a Nord woman you can be quite warm indeed, ho yuss.” Chortling to himself, he turned and left the shop. 

Jensine seemed to sag, and she stood silently, gripping the edge of the counter with hands that trembled.

The girl found her voice at last. “An outrage! This is an outrage! What does he mean by this? I never saw anything like it! He is a cad! A brute and a… a cad!” Her face had turned quite red with anger.

“He steals without finesse. A very clumsy way of doing it. This one does not recommend it.”

“I never heard of such a thing! This will not stand! I will go and settle matters with that filthy man,” the girl stormed, and the skies outside suddenly went overcast, causing many people in the street to look up in amazement, for moments before it had been a clear day. “I’ll make him give the money back.”

“How will you do it?”

“Why, I shall… I shall punch him in the face. ‘Do as I say, rude biter!’ I will tell him, and he will just have to cough it up,” the girl said confidently, clenching her fists and making her muscles harden.

“Ah, straightforward counter-robbery by force majeure. A girl has been with the Warrior recently, I see. How beautiful you are, that you do not join her!”

“There is no need to be sarcastic. And it is not robbery,” the girl said loftily. “I’m only taking back what belongs to Jensine. I’ll give it back to her, every coin.”

“Doubtless you can, and when he is recovered from the pounding you will assuredly give him, will he not come back and demand his lucre twice over, in recompense for his distress? And will you be here always to guard this store?”

“Why, he shall… he shall have to die,” the girl said, uncertainly. “If he will not give over, I mean.”

“This one thinks you’ve mistaken someone else for your mother.”

“Well, all right! Help me right this wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because I wish it. Because you have brought me here, and I have seen this with my own eyes, and I cannot help but want to do something about it.”

“Then that is your choice,” the Thief sighed, shaking her head.

“I should do it by stealth and guile, then, since I can’t very well do it by force. I mean, if I want this to stick,” the girl said, hammering her left palm with her right fist thoughtfully.

“What would a girl’s plan be?”

“The principal problem here,” she said, “seems to be that this thief is a hypocrite. It is not as though he were a starving beggar without a roof over his head, or a member of the Thieves’ Guild who finds intrinsic fulfillment in the intricacies of the profession. He stands ostensibly for the rule of law, for the protection of property rights and the keeping of the peace, yet he abuses the implicit trust placed in him on account of his station, and uses the prestige of the law to accomplish precisely that which the law was meant to prevent.”

“Egregious, to be sure.”

“So I must ask myself: what shall need to happen next? Shall he be stopped from doing this one particular thing, but be allowed to carry on with whatever else he is doing? Shall restitution be extracted from him, and an extra compensatory element besides? Shall he need to be hobbled so that he may not do this thing again? Shall he be punished according to the legal code he has sworn to uphold?”

“Well?”

“Oh, do tell me what you think, I’m here to learn from you after all.”

“These are not the lessons this one is meant to teach you,” the Thief said reproachfully.

“Well, I am sorry to have gone astray from your lessons, but I cannot simply put this down.”

“It is not your charge, in any case. In due time, there is another who will come and set this matter to rights. This Watch Captain’s fate is already written and there is nothing you need to do yourself. A girl may be interested to know, his victims will be emboldened enough to come forth with testimony, and he will be arrested according to the prevailing law by a fellow Captain of the Imperial Watch.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” the girl sighed, gazing sadly at the dejected Jensine. “I do hope she’ll get back what is hers.”

“And what would that be?”

“Why, her money.”

“Money comes, money goes,” the Thief said indifferently. _“_ _Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing; ‘twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands.”_

“It is all very well for you and me, but I am given to understand that people need money to live. And if they have earned the money, it should be theirs to spend, surely. Someone else should not be able to come and take it from them, by force or by cunning, without having done the work to earn it,” the girl said, with a slight frown. She knew there was a flaw in this reasoning, but she could not see it clearly.

“If you say so.”

“I would like to do one thing for Jensine,” the girl decided. “The money which he has taken from her — I should return it. Every coin.”

“But Audens Avidius has been doing this for a long time, and to many victims. He has spent much of the money he took from them. Will you recompense them all? Will you track down every coin that he has spent and claim them back for Jensine, for the other shop owners?”

“I cannot,” the girl sighed. “I would have to forcibly take from others, for no reason they can understand or accept. Money really is a strange thing.”

“This one thinks it will be like squeezing blood from a rock,” the Thief remarked. “If you succeed in producing any blood, it will only be your own. Come now. There is someone you should meet.”

The Thief left the shop, and the girl followed behind broodingly. 

“This one supposes you are not aware that Jensine has been a sort of thief, herself,” the Thief remarked. “She, too, has stolen.”

“What did she do? Was she like Avidius?”

“No, not an extortionist, not like that. There was this man, you see, whom she employed as a sort of laborer. The wages she paid him were the sole source of sustenance for him and his family. But she begrudged this expense, and so cast about for a way to extract more labor from him while paying less, thereby fattening her profits. She told him that she had found another worker, an Argonian, willing to do the same work for less, and so she was of a mind to replace him with that Argonian. He begged her to retain him, agreeing to work for a lower wage, and so she achieved her aim. The man conceived a hatred of Argonians then, and in later days got himself embroiled in a rather needless brawl with one of them, for which he was arrested and thrown in jail. His family suffered much for the rest of their lives. The Argonian suffered, too, in his own way. A chain of consequences, unending.”

“Well. That is… regrettable.”

“If you say so.”

“It was beastly of her and she oughtn’t have done that. But she still doesn’t deserve to have all that happen with that Avidius stinker. That’s another matter entirely. Besides, it is not as if Captain Avidius were punishing her or helping those she had harmed.”

The Thief made no reply.

“I do not like this notion of stealing,” the girl said at last. “It seems to me that to steal is to give people fear, anxiety, grief and privation. Need is a better reason, it seems to me, than greed. But it isn’t always good enough, is it?”

“Judge for yourself.”

“Who is this that we are going to meet?”

“An infamous thief, though he sought a far more demanding patroness than this one is. Come here now. Step this way. And here. Well done.”

The gulls cried in the distance. They were near the coast where the Abecean waves lapped against the golden sands, and standing in the middle of a bridge. From where she stood, the girl could see bustling docks and city walls in one direction, and an imposing castle in the other. “Many hiding places in this city,” the Thief remarked. “Many chambers of secrets. That lighthouse there, for instance. But we’re not going there now. We shall visit the castle courtyard.”

They entered the open gates and walked on paths of cobblestone and gravel, among the flowers and ornate columns, coming at last to a dry fountain covered with moss. A man was sitting there, an old man clad in old but good clothes. Crow’s feet were at his eyes. His hair was mostly white, but here and there some strands of raven-black still showed. He looked up at their approach.

“Hallo, Corvus,” the Thief said.

“Hello,” the girl said politely.

“Hail,” the man said, wrinkling his brow as he looked first at the Thief, then at the girl. He peered at the girl, and did not look at the Thief again. “Are you one of the servants, boy?”

“I’m a girl, if you please, sir.”

“So you are. Apologies.”

“It’s no matter. And no, I’m a visitor. I’ve come to talk with you.”

“With me?” He smiled. “Capital! I always like speaking with young people. So few of you have time for me nowadays, what with all the busyness going on. The reconstruction, the new Era and all that.”

“That seems a great pity. I should like to hear you tell any stories you have, if you would like to tell me them.”

He laughed. “Capital! I daresay I have more than a few yarns to spin, and since I am very much idle these days, I should be glad to pass the time with a precocious young lass as yourself. Come, sit by me here. Nothing but dead leaves and twigs in this fountain now, which our gardener doesn’t trouble to clear away more than once a month. I really must speak with our butler about this. Now, then, girl. Do you know who I am?” he asked with a strange gleam in his eye.

“I have heard,” the girl said quite truthfully, “that your given name is Corvus.”

“So it is, so it is.” His face crinkled with some strange joy. “Capital!” he exclaimed again. “I cannot tell you, girl, how much it means to me that now, I can say to you: I have the honor to be the Count of Anvil, Corvus Umbranox, descendant of my famed ancestor Commodore Fasil Umbranox, who was created Count for his valor during the war against the Camoran Usurper, and for his successful campaign against the fearsome Red Sabre Pirates. Corvus Umbranox, that is my name, yes. Do you remember it? Can you say it back to me, please? Indulge an old man.”

“You are Corvus Umbranox, Count of Anvil.”

“Capital!” He clapped his hands with evident delight. “Of course, I am still a man of low reputation,” he added conscientiously, “and it is my capable and beautiful wife Millona that people think of first, when they think of the city or county at all. That is of course as it should be. I haven’t done much of anything since before or after the Crisis, in my capacity as Count. But in other capacities… ah. Ah ha.”

“I’m also told you’re an infamous thief.”

“Very forward of you, to say that. Very forward. But I take no offense. And, indeed, the mere fact that you know such a thing about me tells me that you are no ordinary girl. Who told you that, hm?”

“A friend of mine. She knows you well.”

“So, we have a mutual friend? Perhaps one of my old associates, in the Guild. Well, then, I take it that I am to reveal to you who I was, the mantle I took up and put down again, the reason I take such delight in you saying back to me my name, and the means by which I wrested back my fate from no less a personage than the Daedric Prince of Night?”

“If you like.”

“I do. Capital! Listen well, girl: I was the Gray Fox. Yes, _the_ Gray Fox. And I shall tell you the secret of it: whosoever wears the Cowl of Nocturnal, that person is the Gray Fox, and the grandmaster of the Thieves’ Guild. There used to be a frightful curse on the Cowl; for hundreds of years, its wearers had their names stricken from every record, from memory itself! So it was that people believed the Gray Fox to be an immortal thief, for no one ever knew who it was under the cowl. When it passed into my hands and I put it over my head… in that moment, I ceased to be Corvus Umbranox. Everyone I ever knew forgot me. Even my beloved wife, Millona, would look at me as though I were a stranger, even if I were to entreat her to her face! 

“I do not know how to describe what it is like, to gain all the blessings of the Cowl, yet lose your very life. No words of mine can do this matter justice, so I will not attempt it. In any case, I say ‘used to’; the curse was broken. I did it. I found a way to lift the curse forever. I took my name back. I orchestrated the ultimate heist — such a heist it was! I daresay even the cat thief Rahjin could not have done better.

“You see… I planned a successful heist to steal nothing less than one of the Elder Scrolls. I don’t suppose you know what those are. Few have even heard of them. They remain a closely guarded secret of the Imperial Library in the Imperial City, and not even the Moth Priests who study them can say what they really are. But suffice it to say, girl, that they are artifacts of immense power.”

The girl, who had watched her mother make those scrolls, knew that they were really nothing of the sort, but she remained politely silent and attentive.

“That was a plot seven years in the making. I will go so far as to say that my tenure as the Gray Fox was a time of many daring deeds and cunning feats. I am not the best thief in history, I don’t think, but I know I did my best and I need not be ashamed of what I managed. Still… I have now my true heart’s desire, which is to spend my days with my winsome and terrifically accomplished wife.”

“If that was your true desire, why did you take up the Cowl?” the girl asked. “You’re not the typical kind of vagabond who becomes a thief out of desperate necessity, and thereafter cleaves to the proposition that possession is nine-tenths of the law. You were a noble, and wealthy, and married to the love of your life. What did you want?”

“What did I want?” The old man sat silently for what seemed like a very long time, mulling over this question, until the girl feared that he had fallen asleep, or forgotten her presence entirely. 

But at length, he looked at her again. 

“I wanted everything I couldn’t have,” he said. “I don’t know how to rightly explain this to you. I have always felt as though there was something just out of reach, something I could barely perceive sometimes. But it was always there. Something of incalculable value that I could never take hold of. You are right to say I did not have many of the usual motivations for turning to brigandage or pilfery. I was not even very greedy, as people understand greed — I was always free and open-handed with money. And as the Gray Fox, I enforced the longstanding tradition of the Guild not to steal from the poor. No, wealth had no great hold on my soul. I grew up with such a lot of it, you see,” he explained, “and when you have grown up with an abundance of something, you tend to place less value on that thing throughout your life.”

The girl nodded.

“But yes. Something, I couldn’t say what, something just out of reach, infuriatingly and tantalizingly close, but something I couldn’t seem to get. That was why I became entangled with Nocturnal, I suppose, and decided to put on her Cowl. Secrets in the night, whispers in the dark... I thought, perhaps, there I would find my answer. I thought I would have to be the cleverest and most subtle thief in the world to find out just what it was that I sought, and then to seize it with great skill and daring.

“A little bit of irony, here. The Cowl made my work too easy for me. All I had to do, if I wanted to escape unwanted attention, was to either don or doff the Cowl. _Shadow Hide You_ was written on it, plain as day, in Daedric lettering — and it did. Shadow, I mean. It hid me. I barely had to do a thing in aid of stealth. After a while, in fact, I began to fear it was making me lazy and careless.

“So I tell the truth: some of my happiest capers were done in the time before I donned the Cowl and lost my identity. Ah yes, the swindles and schemes!” He chortled. “That is when one really feels alive, you know? When you’ve put yourself into a situation where without great subtlety and cunning you would succumb to an ill fate. And my favorite scheme, to this day, involved none of the thief’s paraphernalia. No craftily-made lockpicks, no supple dark gloves, no muffled boots, no concealing hood, no dexterous sleight of hand. Nothing but wit and will and sheer gumption.

“Now, this was in my younger days, you see. I was a well-known wastrel here in Anvil, and I had this friend who was the most talented storyteller and play-actor you could hope to meet. Best of friends, we were. Name of Jesan Sextius. He was my accomplice in my favorite piece of skulduggery. And this was my favorite, as I’ve told you, because everything we did was in plain sight, and only wit and will could carry the day.

“We first made sure that one evening we were seen in each other’s company at the Count’s Arms — I actually owned it at the time, but that was before the Cowl. My name was wiped off the deed, can you imagine. In any case — we sat there, played a game of dice, and caused a ruckus. Accused each other of cheating, nearly came to blows, I called him a thief, he called me a liar, all of that. They had to hold us back from each other. At any rate, as far as anyone else was concerned, we were at each other’s throats.

“The next evening, we were hosting a delegation of burghers from all over the Heartland. Here to look into various land and shipping investments, I seem to recall. But I wasn’t interested in those. I had something else in mind. While these burghers were being hosted and plied with drink in my own establishment, I came running in panting and obviously excited about something. After some brandy to calm my nerves, I loudly informed the assemblage that I had discovered a marvelous family secret — I had found the hidden resting place of Captain Torradan ap Dugal, the pirate king of the Red Sabres and ancestral foe of the Umbranox clan! I was willing, I declared, to sell a map I had drawn detailing the route to the sunken cavern where the untold treasures of the Red Sabre Pirates had lain untouched for hundreds of years.

“What proof did I have, they scoffed. So with a dramatic flourish, I brandished an old copper amulet of ancient make — this was a real copper amulet, you understand, convincingly made green by seawater but cheap as dirt — and said this had been found on one of the skeletons I had seen in the cavern, and I had claimed this as proof.

“Why would I not claim the treasure for myself, they queried suspiciously, at which point I rolled my eyes and complained of the wearisome trouble involved. It was much more reasonable for me to sell the information that would lead to the treasure, albeit at some discounted price. Chests upon chests of gold, jewels, chalices, weapons, everything that the notorious Captain ap Dugal was said to have been carrying in the hold of the _Black Flag_ — that was his flagship — on that fateful day when he was corralled by my ancestor, fought his last battle and came off worst for the last time.

“Now, obviously all this would still be of little interest to the burghers, because it was quite a high price I was asking for my map of dubious provenance. Well, anything from me at that time was of dubious provenance — such was my well-earned reputation. The priggishly uptight Alessia Ottus describes me in her book as ‘light and frivolous’ and ‘given to loose and riotous behavior likely to promote scandal’, and on this point at least she was quite correct. At any rate, they showed little interest in my offer, as I had expected.

“Then Jesan made his entrance. He strode into the tavern in a great fury, and came to stand beside me with the most pompous and self-righteous air he could muster. Friends, he said, wealthy patrons of the arts — he fancied himself a writer and a poet, you see — and he said, ‘Good people, hear but one thing from me, and then I will leave you to hear anything else you wish. This man here, as you all well know, is an infamous liar and a cheat. He deceived me last night, and he attempted to deceive me again only a few hours ago. He tried to persuade me to help in this business, and said we would divide the profits. See the harm he tried to do to my conscience, and to your purses! I refuse to be a party to this connivance, and I hereby expose the deceitful impostures of my erstwhile friend Count Corvus Umbranox. Shame on you, Corvus!’

“Naturally I was much aggrieved, and as the jeering began Jesan and I got into a scuffle. He angrily snatched the amulet from my hand, and — lo! He stepped back, and on his face there appeared such a sudden look of horror that it was plain to all: something uncanny had occurred. He was a great one for acting, was Jesan. This couldn’t have been done with a lesser thespian.

“He groaned, and began to foam at the mouth so convincingly the burghers began to cry out that I had poisoned him somehow. But then he began to speak, and his guttural voice was not his own. ‘Cap’n! Arr, Cap’n! We thirst, Cap’n! Nary a day’s gone by but what we be drinkin’ our own piss ‘n this brackish brine here! All those years sailing alongside ye, beatin’ mast to make for the moons… now to end our days never to see neither moons nor stars evermore… wait. You. You are not the Cap’n. Who are you? I know you, arr, I know your blood… the smell of it… You’re an Umbranox!’

“I’m not doing this half as well as he did, I swear, girl. I concocted the scheme, and I complemented him well enough in our little charade, but really, he was always one of the unacknowledged masters of the craft. Before too long he was spitting venomous invective at me for being of the hated Umbranox bloodline, and he was so convincing that I was genuinely terrified, half-convinced that he really was the vengeful spirit of a long-dead corsair! He became positively apoplectic at the thought of his beloved Captain’s treasures falling into my hands, with no one left to guard it, and then he became quite violent.

“The rest of them had to hold him down, and he was giving blows to everybody with his hands and feet. I kept calling for them not to hurt him, reminding them he was but an innocent victim of a malevolent spirit, and called upon the Divines for aid. Several of the more devout burghers joined me in this. Jesan committed to the whole thing, he really did. Couldn’t have pulled it off without him. Eventually, he made as if the spirit was departing, and he cried out most piteously that all the loot of the Red Sabres was now to fall into the hands of thieves and plunderers. And then he went limp.

“Presently he came to, and we made a great display of reconciliation, begging each other’s forgiveness and promising to be friends again. ‘I will destroy this map,’ I cried. ‘I do not care for this treasure, be it ever so great. It has already nearly cost me a friend.’

“Jesan presented himself then as having had a change of heart. He told everyone he had known the thoughts of the spirit while it possessed him, and there was no longer anything standing between the way of an enterprising band of fortune hunters and the fabled treasure of Captain ap Dugal. I refused to sell it to him, not to put his life further at risk, and he bitterly resigned himself to my choice. The upshot of it was, the burghers got together in groups and began bidding for my map. They wouldn’t go themselves, of course — they’d hire adventurers to do the footwork for them. Three thousand septims, that was the winning bid in the end. Almost the price of a mansion in the Westgate district.

“And that, girl, was how we made a tidy profit off nothing more than an old copper amulet and a scrap of vellum.” He chuckled gleefully at the memory.

The girl grinned. “It seems to have been enjoyable, in its way.”

“Oh, yes, that it was, that it was. Of course,” Corvus said reflectively, “my wife had to mollify them months later by paying them compensation out of our coffers, plus a little extra for their trouble. So out of that, we got bugger all, really. Ah, Jesan… what times we had.” 

“So your prank caused you to incur a loss,” the girl observed. “It was never about wealth, for you.”

“No. No, it wasn’t.”

“It can be great fun to play at hiding and sneaking,” the girl remarked. “To take risks, to be clever and patient and win a reward for being so, to go into a place one was told not to go. To see what is hidden, to hear what is concealed, to know what is secret, to take the thing one desires that cannot be had by any other means. And to do it all in clandestine fashion, so that none may hinder you as you come and go.”

Corvus gave her a very strange look. “Yes,” he said. “Spoken like… like a true thief.” He sat back and sighed. “I suppose it is all right that I may never know just what it is I’ve been wanting my whole life,” he said. “After all… as you say… it has been great fun.” He winked, and the girl smiled back.

“Come away now. This one will take you back to your mother.”

“I must go home now. Thank you for the talk and the story,” the girl said, getting up and making a small bow. Corvus inclined his head in return.

“Come back sometime!” he called out as the girl turned and left with her guardian.

“So that’s one of the Gray Foxes,” she said.

“The last proper one. The next one was a bit… unfocused. And then without Nocturnal’s gift on the Cowl, the others who followed were simply… venal.”

“Gift? You mean curse.”

“Gift. Curse. It is all the same,” the Thief said indifferently as they stepped back out of the mist and onto the path that led back to the Village.

“Hm. Yes, I see now.”

“What does a girl see?”

“I maintain that no one should take bread out of a hungry person’s hands. But that’s not at all what you are about, is it?”

“What is this one about?”

“Freedom. The discreet word, the misdirecting glance, the subtle hand. The adventuresome mind that thinks sideways to go forward. And the gift of loss,” the girl decided. “The gift that is given by taking away… is the gift of _possibilities.”_

“Indeed.”

“One more question. Just what was it that Corvus Umbranox wanted all his life but never got?”

“Who says he never got it?”

“... oh? Oh!”


End file.
